


Coming Home

by matrixrefugee



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Children of Earth Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 20:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18556999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: Written forTorchwood, Jack Harkness, The first place he went to when he left Earth after the 456 was back to the 51st Century.Featuring Jack's father Franklin and a pet theory of mine, as well as some brief dark thoughts (it's post-CoE, there will be darkness).





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Torchwood, Jack Harkness, The first place he went to when he left Earth after the 456 was back to the 51st Century.](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/142494.html?thread=6590878&format=light#cmt6590878) Featuring Jack's father Franklin and a pet theory of mine, as well as some brief dark thoughts (it's post-CoE, there will be darkness).

He had to be quit of the earth, putting behind the ghosts there: so many of his team members, his wife back in the 'teens who had died of the Spanish Influenza, his own grandson, so many lovers....

Ianto...

Jack pushed the thought to the back of his head as he pressed on through time and space, to the place where it had started. The fifty-first century, to the Boeshane Peninsula, a spit of land off the one real continent on a watery world orbiting a white star, one of the few habitable planets in that system. A place where people scraped a living from the sea, but where they had managed to form a happy life for themselves, in between incursions from space pirates and far worse things. Things with a fondness for human energy and who used them as slaves. Maybe he would get lucky and he would get caught up in one of the slave raids. They could use him however they wished: they could even try and kill him, for all he cared. It might end this miserable existence of his, this constant state of resurrection.

He came upon a cluster of fisherfolk bringing in their leather-covered boats and their pots of fresh caught fish and shellfish, some already on the shore, sorting the catch into bins of ice, trading jests and jabs about the day's catch.

He spotted one fellow, slightly rugged faced, with short, sand-colored hair, shirt off as he sorted spined shrimp, a wide band of linen about his middle, as if holding something in. An injury? No, he could scent the guy's hormones: progesterone and a hint of prolactin.

"Had a good catch there?" Jack asked, grinning to the man sorting shrimp.

He looked up, smiling a bit as he rose. "Better than usual," he replied. That familiar gruff but kind voice. "You fish?"

"Used to, with my dad, till he settled down after his wife had my little brother," Jack replied.

"Been doing some travelling since then, I take it?" the fisherman replied, kneading the small of his back with one fist. "You talk like you're from here, but your clothes aren't familiar."

"Left this place a long time ago," Jack replied. "Haven't been back till now."

The thought crossed his mind: none of this could ever happen. Franklin, his father, was working away from the others. It would be so easy to strangle the man, throw him into the water nearby, hold him down till he drowned, kick him in the gut, make sure none of this happened.

But he thought back on the Doctor, the one who had destroyed his life and saved it through destroying it, who had taken a coward and made him into a hero. He thought of the times they had saved the world and even the universe. He thought of the day when the Children of Time had gathered in the TARDIS, to free Earth and fly it home to its rightful spot orbiting an otherwise unassuming yellow star. And he caught himself not wanting to disappoint that most singular being.

"Thinkin' back on your travels?" Franklin asked.

Jack brought himself back to the present moment. "Bad habit: when you've been to as many places -- and times, I might add -- you wind up getting lost in your memories."

"Wouldn't mind hearing about some of them," Franklin offered. "I've got fresh bread and salt waiting at home."

"I'd be glad to, but I got places to be," Jack replied, glancing to the sky. Then he looked back to Franklin, eyeing his waist. "How far along are you?"

"Five months, and he's already getting active. Keeps me awake at nights, the rascal," Franklin replied, pretending to be gruff. "He's gonna be a busy one."

"Let him be busy: let him get himself in trouble, but take care of him," Jack replied. "Maybe he'll be a traveler someday."

"I'd rather he kept close and helped with the fishing. But you don't have kids just to tie 'em down. They gotta plant themselves where they need to be, where the universe can use 'em," Franklin replied.

"Ain't that the truth?" Jack mused. "Well, don't me keep you from your work," he said.

"Don't hesitate to come back here: Name's Franklin."

"I'm Jax: I'll be here before you know it," Jack replied, walking back up the shingle, continuing on his way.

He had hoped this would make it better, but in some ways, this trip had made it worse. He set the coordinates on his wrist strap for a space port bar he knew of, a dive bar where nobody would know him or at the least, no one would think to bother him.


End file.
